


Who kicked a hole in the sky so the heavens would cry over me?

by Stolperzunge



Category: The Pacific (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canon compliant (I guess), Character Death, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, M/M, Other: See Story Notes, Period-Typical Racism (implied), Pining, Post-Canon, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD (implied)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-27
Updated: 2020-07-27
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:07:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25538530
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stolperzunge/pseuds/Stolperzunge
Summary: I drink too much nowadays, I know I do. Ask your old man for me how long it takes until your body gives up on you. We should meet before that, until it’s too late for me.Jesus, it's not even been 10 years since the war and I’m already talking about my death. I’m pathetic. Should be grateful that I’m still alive, but I can’t feel grateful, I really can’t, Sledgehammer.You feel grateful?___Merriell writes a bunch of letters to Eugene following the years after the war, asking him all the questions that are running through his mind. Allowing himself to reflect about their time together, the state of the world and his own life, sharing his thoughts and fears with the man he once knew better than he knew himself.
Relationships: Merriell "Snafu" Shelton/Eugene Sledge
Comments: 11
Kudos: 13
Collections: Sledgefu Week 2020





	Who kicked a hole in the sky so the heavens would cry over me?

**Author's Note:**

> Sooo I wrote this back in May and convinced myself, that I would never post it, but I feel brave today, so here we are :^)  
> The last time I wrote a fic was a few years ago and English isn’t my first language, so please don’t trash me.
> 
> Of course this is based on the TV show and not on the real people. That’s also why I’m not really concerned about their family-tree or anything. This is _fiction_. 
> 
> Please read concerning **Character Death!**  
>  But only read if you have to/you don’t mind “SPOILERS”:  
> I decided to not tag it as major character death, because it would give the ending away, which is not that important, I guess it’s easy to figure out what’s going on, but meh. Anyway [spoiler incoming], Merriell has already past away in this story ;(
> 
> / end of note/spoiler
> 
> Enjoy!

**1945**

Hey Sledgehammer, 

Surprised I’m writing you? Did you even know I could write? Well I can and I can also read so write me back!

What do you do, Sledgehammer? Are you planning on going to school?   
You should you know. You have the potential. 

I don’t know shit about those big fancy schools but I bet they could teach even your stubborn smart-ass something useful. Maybe not useful because none of you academics are really useful, but you get what I’m saying. 

I already found a job.   
It’s nothing special and it won’t change the world or some shit but it pays the rent.   
Ain’t much out there for someone like me. I’m not blessed with a big brain like yours and sadly they aren’t looking for professional killers in my area.

Do you think about it? The war? Has it taken a hold on you? 

  
**1946**

Don’t tell me if the war took a hold on you I don’t want to know!

I picture you as quite happy these days.   
You go home during semester breaks and your mom is serving you iced tea while you’re doing your homework. You’re reading a thick book with Latin words in it and your brain grows even bigger. Maybe you adopted another dog? He’s a little pup and you’re his whole world.   
You sleep peacefully every night and nothing disturbs your dreams. 

I hope the sun in Alabama is more gentle with you than the one in Japan. I got really dark this summer, working outside and all.  
I always wonder, if Mrs Sledge would serve me tea at her table if I came to visit you or would she make me sit at a separate table with the servants?  
You tell me, Sledgehammer.

If you visited me we could eat at the same table but then again, I live in a small flat, probably smaller than your childhood bedroom. So it wouldn’t suit you either. 

We should probably wait a little while. Adjust to our new lives and maybe we can arrange a meeting then. I’d like to see you again after all.

  
**1949**

Eugene,

It’s been a while. How are you doing? Finishing your degree? 

I’m holding up quite well if you ever asked yourself. The last years flew by. I moved a couple of times, didn’t find my place in this city yet. I miss the bayou. Yeah I know, I’m stupid. There was nothing there for me, but I’m kinda missing the misery of my childhood home that followed your every step down in the swamp. 

It’s better in the city for a lot of reasons. I guess I have to grow into this new life. Did so with the life back in the pacific, so I’ll manage. 

Yesterday a boy called me “Sir”, can you believe? I already feel like I’m getting old. 

You’d probably be an old man right out of a child’s tale. Always in a suit and a hat, southern polite charm, a certain kind of authority around you.   
I'll probably be loud and indecent and inappropriately dressed till the day I die.   
We would make a funny picture together as old man, don’t you think? I’d put on a suit on Sundays and we would go to church together, like good old friends do.  
You still go to church, right?

I’ll write you as soon as I settled down a bit and maybe you can visit me for a weekend or so.

  
**1951**

Dear Eugene,

I heard you got married. Congratulations!

The missus can count herself lucky. Ain’t a more decent man in the whole of Alabama.   
I’d say in the whole of America, but I didn’t see enough of the country to judge and I can’t say the whole of the south, because there’s Burgie and his Texan-ass and we both know he’s a saint. But you’re a close second, Sledgehammer and I bet you’ll make her very happy and I hope she does the same for you.

I was back in New Orleans, recently, visited my Ma.   
It’s different now in the city. Even more lively, it’s freeing, somehow. The world is changing, can you tell?   
Should have rang me up I would have arranged a bachelor’s party for you. There are some nice secret places here in New Orleans, but we could still go there if the missus let’s you. I hope you got to live a little, Sledge, before marriage got you.

But I know you’re happy. It’s what you always wanted, right? The domestic life.   
Maybe next time we read each other I’m in the cage too, who knows.

  
**1953**

Hey Gene, 

My Ma died. It wasn’t a surprise. She was old and blind and ill. If she had been a dog we would have put her down a long time ago, I suppose. Don’t get mad at me for writing like that about my mom, you know what I’m like. You’re probably the only person who knows. 

Sometimes I think about Hamm with two M’s and how he left his life on Okinawa.   
Imagine it would have been me who had died that night. Would have been for the better. 

I guess that kid had a prosperous (yeah, I know fancy words too) future ahead of him.   
He always reminded me a bit of you. You both were idealistic little brats, when you had joined the Marines.   
He was simply too soft. Not in a bad way. In the real world he would have made it, I’m sure of that, he’d grown into a decent man, but on Okinawa?  
Fuck, only the mean bastards survived there and the ones who were God’s favorites, like Burgie or yourself, Sledge.

I thought about moving back to New Orleans. My mother left me her little shack, but this city is like poison. I went out every night and drank until the morning, the last time I stayed there. I drink too much nowadays, I know I do.   
Ask your old man for me how long it takes until your body gives up on you. We should meet before that, until it’s too late for me.  
Jesus, it's not even been 10 years since the war and I’m already talking about my death. I’m pathetic. Should be grateful that I’m still alive but I can’t feel grateful, I really can’t, Sledgehammer.

You feel grateful? 

  
**1961**

Shit, I’m sorry that I didn’t write in such a long time and I’m sorry I opened the letter the way I did.

I’m back in the San Francisco. Fuck, it’s amazing!   
Forget what I ever wrote about New Orleans or a new era. The sixties are a whole different thing. Maybe I’ll find peace here, I’m hopeful.   
It’s pleasantly hot here, but less humid which is great. There are quite a few earthquakes but no one gives a shit about them. Californians are something else, I’m telling you!

Oh congratulations on your second child! Read about it in the newspaper, when I visited my sister in the south. She had a little baby girl while we were overseas. The father left her but she gets by. I send her some money whenever I can, but the west is expensive. 

Write me back, I want an update about how life treated you the last few years!

  
**1965**

Dear Eugene,

You heard about the war in Vietnam? I mean, of course you did. 

I want it to end.  
It’s been 20 years. Feels like I’ve done nothing in those years. Just grew older but none the wiser. Bet you have. What would I give to talk to you right now. I want you to tell me that it’s gonna be alright. I know it won’t be, but I want you to tell me.  
  
I want to talk about the war now. I didn’t in all those years, but now I want to.

Do you talk about the war? With your old friend, Sid? Or with your wife? Does she know, that you were angry once? Angry enough that you wanted to kill every single one of them? Does she know, or am I the only one who knows? 

What does she do when you wake her up in the middle of the night with one of your nightmares? You do have them too, don't you?

Or am I alone with the dreams? Is it because of what I did? Is it because I’m not a believer?  
The feeling of being alone with this is killing me, Eugene! 

Do you hate me for what I did? Do you tell stories about the mad Marine in your company who looted the corpses? Am I your example for the lack of humanity in the face of war?  
  
Or do you speak fond of me, as one of your comrades? Do you tell them about the day at the airfield where you saved my life?

Do you speak about me at all? Do you think about me?

You think in 20 years from now, two guys will write each other about their time in Vietnam? Asking those same questions? You think this will continue until the end of time?

  
**1969**

Sledge, 

I’m not a damn hippie or anything but I like what the young folks are doing… they’re doing alright. They’re doing the right thing. They don’t just sit there and let others decide for them, they take actions.

All those drafts... I’m sorry for all the Burgies and Hamms and Sledges and even Leydens who will have to go to war and for all the lives they will take.

I’m not sorry for the Sheltons. War is the best thing that could happen to them. They don’t have anything to lose except their lives and maybe they’re happy enough to actually get rid of it, otherwise they’ll be cursed with a life in agony as their rightful punishment. 

Eugene, if I hadn’t met you… Doesn’t even feel right to call you Eugene anymore. Feels like I should call you Mr Sledge. You’re probably a whole different person now. We should introduce each other again, properly, like the strangers we grew to be.

If we had met at a different place, back in Mobile, would you have even talked to me? Or would I have been too far beneath you? My skin too dark, my clothes too plain?  
No, you would have shook my hand if I introduced myself to you. Because you're a good Christian, a good man. You would have shook my hand but you wouldn’t have become my friend and you sure as hell wouldn’t have slept next to me in a hole in the ground.

I’m glad I met you during the war. We could be equals for a short amount of time. We could be friends. We could be close without being judged. I was allowed to call you Gene and we were allowed to sleep next to each other.

I always tell myself I wouldn’t do it again. Going to war. We had nothing at the time, we were starving. Me being overseas lessened my mothers strain and gave me something to eat, but it wasn’t worth what followed, what haunts me till this day.  
But fuck, I would do it again. I would enlist again to meet you on Pavuvu.

Would you do the same?

  
**1973**

You know Sledge, I always thought about your life after the war, even during it I pictured you in one of those houses with columns and a giant front porch.   
I pictured you all good and proper, sitting in your study, a giant bookcase behind you. You’d read every book in your lifetime, because you could, you’d got the time and the peace of mind for it. 

I’d picture you with a dog and every ten years or so with a different one because you managed to love them dearly and let them go when their time had come. Because you learned how to move on, because war didn’t destroy you.

I also pictured you with a family. You’d be a great dad. You’d teach your kids all you knew and you’d be kind to them. You’d hug your sons and teach your daughters how to drive. 

Eventually you’d invite Burgie and Leyden and Jay and they’d bring their families, or show pictures of them and you’d all be able to talk about the war, because it didn’t define any of you.

God Eugene, in all those years I pictured myself with you. I know it’s wrong and I’m so sorry. At least I’m not ruining our friendship because we don’t even know each other anymore, but I pictured myself with you and I was so happy.

I pictured waking up next to you, not in a muddy hole, but in a bed with white sheets, your hair would glow in the rising sun and I would be able to reach out and touch you.  
I dreamed about renting a flat with you. In my fantasy I was selfish enough to keep you from getting a degree. We would have simply worked. Maybe you could have earned your way up at a publishing place, you were always good with words. And I would have done any job I could have gotten.

I bet after a while we would have adopted a little dog. Or maybe a cat, lower maintenance.

We would have talked about the war and we would've helped each other. 

You would've grown your first wrinkles and I my first grey hairs and we’d still be happy together. 

But then… we could’ve never been happy living like this. Because along the way I would’ve fucked up. Picking up the drinking, or gambling or my inability to stay at a place for longer than a few months. And you would’ve grown out of love, thinking about all those missed opportunities, missed because of me.

And I better left you on that train back in 1945. Better than spending any time longer with you just for you to realize that I’m not enough.

I could have never survived if you had left me, after I had you. 

And despite everything, every single doubt I ever had, all the shame I felt, I so desperately want to see you again... Even though I know you would eventually have to turn your back and leave me, to go back to your normal life.

In the darkest hours of the night I wish I would have stayed. I wish we would’ve stayed together.

  
**1975**

Did you tell Burgie he should reach out to me?   
Fucking hell, I don’t want him to pity me, or any of you!

You fucking hypocrites! Who stayed in touch? No one stayed in touch with me!

I bet ya'll have yearly reunions with your wives and children at one of your perfect homes, having a barbecue in the backyard. Is Burgie the godfather of one of your kids? Are you a godfather of one of his? Any of you related by marriage? 

None of you ever tried to reach out! Do ya’ll feel bad enough now? After 30 years ya’ll want to know how I’m doing?

Fuck you! I’ll never talk to any of you about my pathetic life. Because that’s what you all think it is, right? How could Snafu have a normal life?  
Did you ever picture me in a beautiful home? With a wife and kids and a steady job? I bet you didn’t. Ya’ll pictured me in the gutter, struggling to get by.  
And now you want to feel better about yourselves by reaching out, offering your generous help. 

To hell with that and all of you!

  
**1987**

Dear Eugene, 

I retired.   
My back hurts and my hands are jittery. I get bad headaches these days. I don’t know if it’s the war or the alcohol agonizing me, but I moved back to New Orleans. My niece was kind enough to take me in.

I know you still live in Mobile.

It’s a beautiful city, Mobile. If been there at the harbor feast each summer for like 15 years. 

Please don’t freak out, nothing happened, right? 

I went there for the first time in 1961 after I visited my sister. It was a short trip compared to the following years.   
I traveled each year after that from California to Mobile just to see you. I know it sounds creepy, but I don’t give a fuck at this point. 

Back then I did, I felt sick to my stomach, driving to Mobile just to search for you in the crowd and then I spending hours looking at you and your family… after the first year I swore to myself I'd never do it again, but I did. 

I only wanted to see you Eugene. Wanted to see the sunlight dance over your features.   
You already had your little family back then, when I saw the five of you at the harbor. I saw you picking up your youngest and kissing him on his cheek and I was so happy for you, I truly was. You were so beautiful the way you looked out at the ocean, arm around your wife, still smoking that pipe.

I was never ever angry at you or your family! Please believe me that I never was some kind of threat! I just wanted to see you again after all those years…

One time I came very close to you by accident. I wanted to buy something to eat and you got ice cream for your family. I was so close, that I could catch a glimpse of your eyes. And suddenly it was like I was back in 1945, but not on some Japanese island, but back in China, you remember our time in China?

I never told you, when we were together, but I always loved your eyes. They always seemed a bit strange to me for a redhead, most redheads I met had pale eyes. Yours are so dark and rich and there was nothing I loved more than when a fire started to burn in them. 

There are a lot of passionate people out there, with fiery eyes of their own, but I never got over yours. Their shape is kind, but their gaze is fierce! 

I stopped coming to Mobile after my self-loath grew too strong and I couldn’t stand spying on you any longer. Somehow it became easier to love the fantasy version of you, I crafted in my head. Seeing you in the real world only hurt and didn’t bring me satisfaction anymore, it never really did.

I’m sorry about that. But I’m old now and I did change quite a bit. It’s time for me to let go of things. Things I did hate myself for. 

Like stalking you for 15 years at the Mobile harbor. 

Or loving you since the day I saw you on Pavuvu. 

Did you ever look out for me in a crowd? 

  
**1991**

Dearest Eugene, 

I read about your wife in the newspaper, last year. I’m sorry. I hope you and your family are alright by now.

I don’t have the patience to be any more tactful. Do you want to visit me?

***

  
Eugene sat inside Merriell’s little room, on his bed, surrounded by his things and his smell. But he didn’t really notice any of that, he just stared back at his own reflection in the wardrobe mirror. 

Time had taken its toll on him, of course it did. His shoulders were rounded, the lines around his mouth digged deep, he wouldn’t swear on it but he was convinced that his nose got even bigger the last few years. 

He still had his red hair though, what was left of it. He stroke over it, to flatten it against his scalp. He had tried to look somewhat presentable that day, for Merriell and his family.

He had felt a heavy weight on his shoulders, ever since Merriell’s niece had contacted him.  
She knew everything about Eugene. Knew about his father and mother and even his brother. Knew about Deacon. Knew about his life after the war, the little Merriell had gathered out of newspapers and his secret trips to Mobile. 

He would kill her, if he knew she was telling him all that, she joked.

Mer had started to talk about the past a lot, when he came back to New Orleans to live with her. He had been a hard man, when she’d grown up. He always had been kind and generous, but he could also be closed off and he got into his moods quite often. 

But that had changed with his age, he’d grown mild, even sweet at times. He talked a lot about the war, but mostly about the friendships he formed there. 

She thought it would be the right thing if Eugene came to visit them.

The weight Eugene felt had grown on his way to New Orleans.  
His youngest was kind enough to drive him there. He gave up driving a while ago. It was his age, slowly all things came to an end.   
His children had moved away. His wife had died. Only his youngest stayed in Alabama and looked after him from time to time. Eugene hated to admit it, but he started to need the help around the house. Soon enough he either had to plead for one of his children to move in with him, or sell the house and move in with his children.

What if he had the chance to move in with Merriell? Reunited in their late autumn at last?

Tears welled behind his eyes.

The weight on his shoulders had waned a little when he had arrived at the house of Merriell’s niece and saw those special Shelton-eyes in her face, when she greeted him, like she had known him her whole life, when he sat down with Merriell’s family and they shared stories and laughs together.

But they weight became unbearable, almost crushing him, when he stepped foot inside the church, when he sat through the memorial ceremony and started to realize that this was the closest he would ever get to Merriell again.

Eugene had been one of the pallbearers. He wanted to do it, even before he got to read Mer’s letters. That was what old friends did for each other, right? Paying one another their last tributes.

His niece had found the letters in her uncles bedroom after his death. Of course she knew who Eugene Sledge was, her uncle always talked about him. She said it was a pity, that he never sent them and Eugene could only nod along. But she thought it was the right thing to contact him nonetheless. He had been dear to her uncle, she could tell, even without reading the letters. They belonged to him, so she gave them to Eugene.

And now he sat on Merriell’s bed, clutching the last letter in his hand, Merriell had ever written to him, dated two years before his death.

To answer one of the many questions Merriell had asked him in his letters: Yes he had thought about him. 

In the beginning every day. When he still had hope that the other man would show up at his door one day, to make up for his mistake, to reunite with Eugene. But the days and years went by and he didn’t hear a thing from Merriell and so he started to move on. 

He met his wife and he did love her, still does. And he was happy.

He still thought about him then, but not that often anymore. Mostly at night times when the pictures of dead enemies and dead friends crept into his mind, into his dreams.   
When he wished he had someone right beside him who would understand, who’d feel the same.

And when he couldn’t wrangle the thought he even pictured him and Merriell together. And he asked himself what had went wrong, for them to part forever. 

Merriell’s niece had shown him pictures of an old Mer and it was like Eugene had always thought, that the other man would keep his curls until the day he died. Those thick dark locks, he still remembered the texture. 

Merriell was often times surrounded by a bunch of relatives in those pictures. His nieces family. A child on his lap or by his hand and his head full of dark grey curls. 

He looked even shorter than back at the pacific, years of hard manual labor claiming their tribute. The lines around his mouth and on his forehead were very prominent. He had a round belly, Eugene wouldn’t have thought that this was even possible with Merriell’s slim build. 

But his eyes were still the same. The skin around them more wrinkly but still as expressive as in the face of a twenty-year-old. 

And he looked happy, he smiled in every single picture. 

The weight on Eugene’s shoulders had shifted, after Merriell’s casket had rested on one of them. As they lowered the coffin into the ground, the weight had become a big smooth sphere of lead inside his guts. As if someone had shot him right in the stomach with a giant bullet of regret.

He finally looked away from his reflection, pressing a hand to his forehead. “Why didn’t you sent them, you goddamn idiot?”, he asked quietly.  
His mind was racing. He had so many questions himself, he never would get to ask, never would get an answer to. All he had left him were those letters.

Eugene took some deep breaths, tried to calm down before he got up from the bed, not without his knees popping and a little wince on his face. He grabbed the little carton in which Merriell had stored the letters in. There was still some paper inside but it was torn into little pieces and Eugene wasn’t sure if he was allowed to read it. 

He already felt odd for reading the other ones. Sure, they were addressed at him but after all Merriell had never sent them, technically he hadn’t wanted him to read them.  
  
Then again, those letters were a _gift_ and those little pieces could bear a message even more meaningful than the ones Eugene already read. Or they could destroy everything.   
Telling Eugene that Merriell hated him in the last days of his life, turning his back at him.

Eugene emptied the box over the small table by the window and started to puzzle the pieces together.  
First thing he found was the date. Exactly one day after he left him on the train. Eugene could never forget that date.

_Dear Eugene,_

_I’m sorry I left you. I really am. You deserve better, but I just couldn’t do it._  
_I bet I will get a letter from you someday inviting me over to Mobile. I won’t be mad if it takes you a little while. After all I left you without saying goodbye._  
_We could lie and say we only knew each other briefly during the war, I could even stay at a hostel, I wouldn’t mind. You could tell your parents whatever, I would go along with it. Anything, if I get the chance to see you again. Just please don’t hate me and don’t forget about me! It would be nice to see you again. I’m free whenever you are._

_Yours always,_

_Merriell Shelton_

With those last words the bullet in Eugene’s guts twisted and broke through the other side of his middle, leaving him with a giant, gaping wound that would never heal, not if he grew hundreds of years old.

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah…  
> If someone actually read this: Thank you so much, I love you! I hope this was somewhat readable/enjoyable!  
> I was afraid that Merriell might be a bit ooc, but people always write differently than how they talk. There is a lot of stuff tormenting him and after all, he never sent those letters so he could write whatever he wantend.
> 
> Edit: I made a mistake by dating the first letter 1945 and writing "And I better left you on that train back in 1945." Of course it should say 1946. Embarrassing lol! 
> 
> Comments and kudos are greatly appreciated :)
> 
> Title is a line from an Oasis song “Let There Be Love”.


End file.
